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Kerberus Mk III Low Kearth Orbit Satellite Delivery Vehicle


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I'm proud of this one mostly because it's just about the first rocket I've made that doesn't look like a complete bag of ass. With clever use of shrouds I was able to give it a very streamlined appearance and pack a lot of action into the final stages (seen below). The rocket relies only on liquid fuel and the primary and secondary engines are just enough to insert it into an orbit between 45 and 50km. There are absolutely no problems with the craft, no unexpected departures from flight, no wobbling, no risk to engine damage. The entire thing works extremely streamlined.

All in all I find it to be extremely attractive looking without crap hanging off it or excessive amounts of engines and sharp angles. I'm also not sure how most people do satellite launches but I'm hoping what I've done here is somewhat unique :)

The biggest problem I have is that it's somewhat power-limited, but I didn't go very overboard with the propulsion. I tried a larger primary stage but ran into severe stability problems between the two engine stages when I did that. With the craft arranged as it's shown here, it exhibits zero flight errors or physics anomalies. It might not do very impressive altitude, but that's mostly because I didn't care to make it hang out 100km away.

Kerberus Mk III - LKO Satellite Launch Vehicle

Mission: Insert payloads into low-Kearth orbit (45-50 km).

Primary engine: '2m Big Effen Engine' - Liquid fuel.

Secondary engine: 4x LV-T30 - Liquid fuel. Crash recoverable.

Payload: Platinum Communications Model BXs-9

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Liftoff - All five engines at 100%.

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Continuing burn - Engines at 85%.

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Beginning orbit rotation - Alt: 33km MSL

Engine status: Primary engine fuel depleted. Secondary engines at 100%.

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Continuing orbit - Alt: 45km MSL

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Secondary engine fuel depleted - Alt: 45km MSL - Speed: 2100 m/s

Jettisoning recoverable secondary engines.

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Jettisoning primary engine and releasing payload shroud for final orbit correction.

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Orbit correction in progress.

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Orbit achieved.

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Payload released.

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Payload housing released, descent engines uncovered.

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Beginning deorbit burn.

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Deorbit complete - descent engine fuel depleted.

Descent engine and command module housing jettisoned for reentry.

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Jettison complete.

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Reentry.

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Heatshield jettisoned for airbag deployment. Parachute released. Splashdown.

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Why does everyone make the payload only one part?

Especially when it's ONLY a solar panel unit...

Kerbal Space Center:

Kouston, the payload is successfully in orbit! Any data recieved yet?

'Not yet. We are working on it now.'

(days later)

'It must be malfunctioned... wait, WHAT!!? YOU SOLD THE MODULE UNIT FOR THE SOLAR POWER SUPPLY UNIT!!?'

'but sir, how would have we supplied the module with power?'

'...'

me-gusta.jpg?1310883034

Newby kengineers on the job today :D

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Why does everyone make the payload only one part?

Most communications satellites are little more than some solar panels and a gold-foil-lined box with a few antennas on it.

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I'm not lifting the ISS here. Besides, I don't have a way to extend the payload shroud - you'd basically be forced to deal with big ugly gaps and I wanted to see if I could make a payload ship 'pretty'. I had to cheat to get the orbit correction engine on it by using the C7 fuel packs, and even then you can see the payload shroud doesn't cover the whole thing.

Without using those ugly wobbly blow-apart panels from Sunday Punch's kit, I can't see any other way to do this and still keep it compact, which was another goal. The entire rocket is rather small.

As an aside, I used the heatshield to jettison it specifically because it looks like a dish antenna...

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Can't place the sattelite above the command module? Thats what I do. There are certain parachute mods with the ability to stack things ontop of a parachute unit, so you can place the four shrouds around the sattelite part instead. Then shroud the command module with a simple stack decoupler shroud.

Problem solved...

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I realized I didn't even attach the damn .craft file.

You'll need more than a handful of mods to use it. From what I can remember:

Moach's heatshield.

Moach's escape tower (for the parachute).

Xemit's microengine.

Sunday Punch's pile 'o parts. Nova's too.

C-7 pack (for the satellite fuel tank).

Captain Slug's radial parachutes.

Vaccer's 'junk parts' pack. For the main engine.

I think that should do it.

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one suggestion,

on the bottom fuel tank of the primary engines,put a 2m decoupler to jettison the 2m engine and tank.

plus,fuel flows through it!

Or you could place SAS modules under each radial decoupler to disable cross feeding

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